Ghosts of Mars
by ficlicious
Summary: Two hundred years of Spec Ops wasn't long enough to prepare her for the Enterprise crew, or their missions. Kirk/McCoy, fem!Bones, Reaper!Bones. Language, sex, violence, mature themes.
1. Part I: March, 2153

**Title**: Ghosts of Mars

**Word Count**: 3140

**Overall Summary**: Two hundred years of Spec Ops wasn't long enough to prepare her for the Enterprise crew.

**Pairing**: Bones/Kirk

**Warnings**: Assumes familiarity with Doom (2005 movie) and the Star Trek reboot. Mature themes. Language. fem!Bones, Reaper!Bones. Hint of twincest of you squint right. This chapter assumes familiarity with the Xindi Incident, as depicted in _Enterprise_.

**Part 1: **In the aftermath of the Xindi attack, Johnna receives bad news, visits family, and deals with an intruder.

_March 23, 2153_

_Tampa Bay, Florida_

Johnna dumped her soiled scrubs in the portable refresher and leaned against the wall. She scrubbed at her face with both hands, grinding the heels of her palms into her eyes in an effort to wake herself up. Exhaustion was practically a foreign concept to her, but it seemed being alert and on her feet for the better part of a week was enough to tax the limits of even her enhanced system.

Her hair stank of smoke and blood, her skin of bile and sweat. It was enough to turn her stomach, enough even to drive her toward the portable sonic shower someone had thoughtfully left in her tent. Johnna hated sonic showers with a passion. She never felt clean, no matter how long she stood in the booth, and the sonic barrage set her teeth on edge, no matter how many times people told her the vibrations weren't audible at human levels. But here, now, water was at a premium, and old-fashioned water showers practically a crime.

She stood under the shower as long as she could manage, wishing she had a handful of shampoo to mask the scent she knew would continue to cling to her skin and hair. She supposed normal people wouldn't be able to detect it, but just like with everything else, the C24 had ramped up her sense of smell to eleven, and it would linger in her nostrils for hours.

She stepped out of the booth and pulled fresh scrubs from the recycler over her supposedly-clean body, tying her hair back into a loose ponytail. She looked longingly at the bunk, still made with tight military corners after all this time. But even in this hastily erected field hospital in the middle of a disaster area that made war-torn countries look downright hospitable, she had paperwork to do and messages to take.

Besides, the C24 had had time to catch a breather and was busily waking her back up again.

She muttered epithets in twelve languages under her breath as she felt herself start to revitalize. Goddammit, now she'd be on her feet for another week straight. If only one of these alien races Earth was so hot to trot about made booze with enough kick to knock her out... So far, the C24 had conquered them all. It never stopped her from trying, though, and with that thought in mind, she hauled her last bottle of Cardassian fire whiskey out from it's hiding spot in her biolocked footlocker.

She poured herself three fingers, resealed the bottle and hid it in her footlocker again. She was tempted to leave it out, polish it off, but disciplined herself. First Contact with the Cardassians had been less than a year ago; trade agreements had not yet been formally established, so God only knew when she'd get her hands on another bottle. It was the strongest stuff yet: still inadequate for a full-out drunk, but enough to make her tipsy.

She sat down at the desk, far flimsier than the solid mahogany monstrosity in her office at Atlanta General, and sipped the whiskey. It burned nice and hot all the way down, and settled into her gut with a pleasant warmth. It wouldn't last long - already her superhuman digestion was tackling the potent poison - but she intended to enjoy it while she could. She thumbed on her comm unit, paging through the messages backed up to high heaven on her personal channel.

Messages from news feeds dated days ago, carrying details of the initial attack and the mounting death toll. Johnna deleted those without doing more than scanning the subject lines; she was on-site already. She didn't need some anonymous third party to tell her how bad it was. Calls from colleagues at the hospital, worried about her safety. Notes from the overworked staff here in Tampa, updating her on the conditions of her various patients. Nestled in among the death notices and cautiously hopeful medical messages was a personal mail from her grand-niece, Penny.

She read it three times, willing the words to change. But that wasn't one of the enhancements that came along with the chromosome, so they didn't. Blindly, she reached for her mostly-untouched glass and downed the contents in one long gulp, then went digging through her footlocker again for the rest of the bottle.

**oOoOoOo**

The nip in the air made Johnna wish she'd brought a heavier coat, but it wasn't anything she couldn't ignore. She'd spent a few weeks in the Antarctic fifty years ago, where she learned that while the cold was definitely uncomfortable, her body simply wouldn't allow frostbite to set in. After surviving hundred below temperatures without so much as a headcold, what was a chilly breeze?

She moved through the tombstones towards the chairs, her eyes automatically going to the mausoleum at the head of the entire set-up. The doors stood open, stone angels flanking on either side. She hadn't been back to the Oakland Cemetary since she'd seen Sam safely interred in that very same crypt, and she knew she should visit her brother. But, as she looked past the marble building to a tall, blonde woman talking quietly with other attendees, she knew Sam wouldn't mind if she put the needs of his only daughter before his.

The liberally-sprinkled salt in Penny's hair told Johnna exactly how much time had gone by since the last time they'd spoken face-to-face, but Penny didn't hesitate to enfold her in a tight hug. Penny had always been far more touchy-feely than Johnna, but she was family, so it was tolerated. She remembered Penny as a bright, happy child, always eager to get an auntie-back ride ("because piggy-back rides are for _babies_, Auntie Jo!"). Johnna hugged her back, careful not to squeeze too hard, and when the other woman broke down and began weeping on her shoulder, she stood quietly and petted Penny's hair.

Eventually, her niece pulled back, eyes red and breath hitching raggedly. Johnna smiled and gently thumbed the tears from her cheeks. "Hey there, Henny Penny. Still holdin' up the sky?"

The routine and the pet name, unspoken for over fifty years, brought a faint laugh. "Nope, gonna let it fall."

"Just don't drop it on me." She ran a critical eye over her niece, not really liking what she saw, but knowing it was probably better than expected. Her niece was pale, with dark smudges of exhaustion and the puffiness of excessive crying under her eyes that makeup couldn't completely conceal. Her cheekbones stood out in sharp relief and her hair had lost that bright sun-gold luster, hinting at a lack of appetite. And, as Penny raised a tissue to dab carefully at her eyes, she saw that the nails were bitten ragged, right down to the quick. "You look like shit, Penny. Your grandfather would kick my ass if he knew I'd let you go this long without sleep or food."

Penny laughed again, soft and fragile. "Blunt as always, Aunt Jo. I've really missed that. Everyone keeps tiptoeing around, asking if I'm okay and how I'm holding up. You just cut right to the point."

"Call it like I see it, kiddo. Someone had to keep you and your grandfather honest." Johnna reached out to squeeze Penny's shoulder comfortingly. "Whatever you need, Pen. I'm here."

Penny shrugged, absently shredding the used tissue between her fingers. She glanced over her shoulder at the people beginning to sit in the chairs. "I have support, Aunt Jo. The church group has rallied around me. My freezer is so full of casseroles and lasagnas that I don't have to do any food shopping for the next three months. And Christine," she nodded at a dark-haired woman, eying the two of them with suspicion, "has set up base camp in my spare bedroom. I think she's building fortifications in there."

Johnna ignored the sting of guilt as best she could. She'd never had a child of her own, didn't want to risk all the potential complications that came from her unique biology. Sam assured her it wasn't an issue, but her molecular biology hadn't been rusty enough to believe him. Penny, just like Penny's mother Jordan, had been like a daughter to her. It had hurt, walking away, but for the best in the end.

Didn't mean it didn't bring the guilt, to see that for however close she'd been to Penny as a child, the girl had grown up and had a life far, far beyond her now.

"Well," she temporized, running a hand over the sleeve of Penny's jacket, picking off invisible lint. "If I can do anything for you..."

Penny gave her a strange look. "You're doing it, Aunt Jo. You're family, and you're here. I need that more thanI need casseroles."

**oOoOoOo**

The service was hard on Johnna, but she'd sat through enough of them over the years to school her reactions. It was worse on Penny, who broke down into hysterics during the eulogy and had to be led back to her seat by the pastor. Johnna wanted nothing more than to go up and console her niece, but she didn't need to draw any more attention to herself than she already had.

After the service, Penny was instantly surrounded with sympathizers and well-wishers. Instead of joining the throng, Johnna stood in front of the still-open mausoleum. It was dark and cool inside, rows of brass and gold plaques evenly spaced along the walls. She stepped inside, pulling one hand out of the pocket of her slacks to press against the plaque that read _Samuel H. Grimm, June 2, 2020- April 27, 2113_.

"Hey Sam," she said softly, tracing the letters of his name with her thumb. "Been awhile, I know. Just like last time, I have no real excuse. I've just been...busy." The smell of mortar hung heavy in the air, and her eyes slid to the newest plaques, engraved only the night before. Five of them in total, all with date ranges far too short. Three tragically short. The last of her family, save her and Penny, gone.

All five coffins were empty.

She turned back to her brother's niche. "Listen, Sam, I know I don't even have to ask, but you make sure you take care of William and Sarah and the kids. I don't know if they got a chance to see the park before it happened, but if whoever's running the show up there has any sense, there's a Disneyland, so you make sure they have a good time."

She stepped back and glanced at the plaque beside Sam's. Hers. _Johnna H. Grimm. June 2, 2020 – November 10, 2046. Always Faithful. _Another empty coffin in the crypt, one she sincerely doubted would ever be filled. "Don't worry about Penelope," she told Sam. "You just worry about those great-great-grandkids of yours. I'll take care of the living. You take care of the dead."

She tilted her head back, hearing footsteps coming across the grass behind her. "See you around, Sam," she said, reaching out to caress his plaque one last time. "Probably not for a long time again, but I'll be back, eventually." She always was.

She turned around to see Penny standing in the door. Her niece avoided looking at the latest additions and, taking the hint, Johnna exited the crypt. There was a tightness around Penny's eyes and mouth she knew well, having seen it often enough on her own face. Penny was pissed.

"Hey kiddo. You look ready to kill someone."

"if one more person tells me they're sorry for my loss, I'm going to shoot them. I'm gonna drive home, get Granddaddy's shotgun, and start pulling the trigger." Penny shot Johnna an assessing look. "Unless you came armed, Aunt Jo. That'd save me some time."

Johnna couldn't help but smile, and she reached out to thread her fingers through Penny's. "I'm always armed, kiddo," she said lightly. "But just so have friends left in the morning... how about instead I just get you out of here for a little while? I've got some tea and some whiskey at the apartment. Special Grimm family recipe for dealing when things go FUBAR."

Penny hesitated, looking back over her shoulder at her friends and associates. Johnna couldn't help but notice Christine staring at them again. It had been niggling at her for the last hour, but Johnna finally put a finger on it. "Come on," she said, tugging gently at her grand-niece's arm. "Let's go before little Chrissy Benton remembers where she's seen me before."

Penny blinked, startled, and allowed herself to be led. "Chrissy Miller, now. Oh, Aunt Jo. I never thought of that. Are you sure that..?"

Johnna shook her head. "It's fine, kid. Occam's Razor. He's closely related to Murphy, though, so let's get going before she starts hearing zebras." At Penny's blank look, she sighed. "Christ, kid. What did that brother of mine teach you? The simplest explanation is often the correct one, but what can go wrong, will. And if you hear hoofbeats outside the window, it's probably horses, not zebras." She fished her keys out of her pocket and hit the button on the fob, steering Penny in the direction of the resulting double beep.

Penny blinked again. "And you're a zebra."

Johnna nodded and opened the passenger door for Penny. "Oh yeah, kiddo. Biggest, stripiest zebra on the block."

**oOoOoOo**

After a couple of hours and three cups of special Grimm's family recipe later, Johnna put Penny in a cab and sent her home. Penny needed to get away from the pressure of constant sympathy. She had let Penny guide the conversation, sighing mentally in relief when she avoided discussing the Xindi attack, Johnna's efforts with the relief teams, and the death of her son, his wife and their three children. Instead, they spoke of light, non-threatening topics, like politics, religion and the weather.

Her grandniece was decidedly more relaxed by the time she left; the rage had left her eyes, leaving only the healthier aspects of grief. Johnna had stayed stone-cold sober the entire time, but then again, she was out of fire whiskey. She watched through the window as the cab drove away, replaying the last question Penny had asked in her head.

"_Is it my fault?"_

"_Is it... Now, you listen to me, Penelope Grimm-McCoy. Are you listening? I don't want to hear that shit coming out of your mouth again. You had nothing to do with what happened. Nothing. I don't know why those motherfucking Xindi decided to carve a fucking trench in the goddamn earth, but I know that you don't deserve this shit, and you sure as fuck aren't responsible for it. Shut the fuck up and cry if you need, kiddo. My shoulder can take it."_

"_You curse a lot when you're angry, Aunt Jo."_

"_That's the other Grimm family special recipe, Henny Penny. Be violent, be vocal, be vulgar."_

Johnna knew what her niece had been asking. Not if the Xindi attack was her fault, but if the fact that she was still alive was her fault. Johnna saw it more often than she'd like. Hell, she'd gone through it herself, after Olduvai. What made her so special, what circumstances decided she was the one worth saving? Why me, why not them?

Survivor's guilt.

She sighed, and moved away from the window. Penny had meant to join her family in Orlando three days after they got there; obligations with her catering business she couldn't defer. The Xindi attack had been the day before her arrival. Johnna wasn't an expert in grief counselling, but the nice thing about her position at Atlanta General was that she knew people who were. She'd pull a few favors, get Penny a referral, and let her niece know it was available if she needed it. She just hoped Penny would take it. No one needed to go through this on their own.

In the process of typing out the various messages needed, she became aware of someone stealthily moving through her kitchen. She didn't react, just kept typing, hyperaware of the intruder's attempt to sneak up on her. She finished her request, sent it to the appropriate party, then reached back, grabbed the hand descending towards her shoulder, and had the intruder up against the wall with a hand around his throat before he could blink.

The man was about as non-descript as they came, with mousy brown hair, faintly Hispanic features and a round face she didn't recognize. He was wore the command uniform of Starfleet, but with no visible rank bars on his shoulder. He scrabbled at her fingers, vise-like around his trachea, and wheezed out, "Major Grimm, I'm from Starfleet Intelligence."

She made him sweat it out another second, then released him. He collapsed forward, hands on his knees, coughing. "Doesn't strike me as very intelligent, sneaking up on a super-soldier so secret you need clearance higher than God to even know about. You sure you're in the right career track?" She pulled him upright, slapping away the hand massaging his throat, and examined her handiwork. "No harm done. You'll bruise, but you'll live. Now, what the fuck are you doing here?"

The officer glared at her and went back to rubbing his throat. He looked like he wanted to say something, but Johnna just arched an eyebrow, and approved when he wisely kept his mouth shut. "I needed to make sure my information was correct," he rasped instead.

Her eyebrow raised a little higher. "And is it?"

"I'd say so. It may even understate a few things."

Johnna sighed. "I've been wondering when you assholes would show up. Surprised it took you this long. So spit it out already. I just came from the funeral of three kids, and you're not making my mood any better."

The officer paused, then nodded. "I'll get right to it, then. My name is Captain Sanchez, Major Grimm. Tell me, have you ever heard of Section 31?"


	2. Part II: March 30, 2153

**Title**: Ghosts of Mars

**Word Count**: 2813

**Overall Summary: **Two hundred years of Spec Ops wasn't long enough to prepare her for the Enterprise crew.

**Pairing**: McCoy/Kirk

**Warnings**: Language, mature themes and situations. Fem!Bones, Reaper!Bones. Hint of twincest if you squint right.  
><strong>Part 2<strong>: It wasn't her idea to go back to active duty, but a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.

**Author's Note**: I'm obviously not a 22nd-century physician. Drug names are pulled directly from the Memory Alpha wiki. MACO stands for Military Assault Command Operations, a military organization affilitated with Earth before the formation of the United Federation of Planets. Certain liberties were taken with the tail end of this chapter (Hayes' name is only listed as J., it was never stated what the J stood for).

_March 30, 2153_

_Atlanta, Georgia_

Had she heard of Section 31? Oh hell _yes_, she had.

Adrenaline surged, reflex kicked in, and Johnna had Captain Sanchez against the wall again. But this time, she wasn't playing around. This time, his face was turning purple and blue inside of ten seconds.

"Oh, I know all about Section 31," she snarled, ignoring the Captain's feet kicking at her knees, the Captain's hands clawing at her face and wrist. "I know you came for Sam when he was with his grandkids, looking for the secrets of Olduvai. Looking for _me_. I got all sorts of interesting information out of that asshole before I buried him somewhere no one ever found. And I know if you don't give me a reason to let you live in the next five seconds, no one will ever find you either."

Sanchez, purple and blue and bug-eyed, scrabbled for his breast pocket even as his eyes rolled back in his head and his feet stilled. He slapped a small padd against her chest with a second to spare. As his hand went limp, she took the device from him and let him slide to the floor. She flipped the padd over, examining it. She wasn't technically-minded past what she needed to run an OR and a busy practice, but the thing looked smaller, smoother, better, than anything on the consumer market currently.

"Figures you fuckers would have the cutting edge shit. Goddamn spies." She nudged Sanchez with a foot, but when he didn't budge and only groaned softly, she shrugged and sat back down at her desk.

The padd wasn't too hard to figure out, once she played around with the touch screen for a few moments. There was only a single data file in the memory, but Johnna had an even dozen different uses she could put something like this to, even without the benefit of preloaded programs. The data file was labelled "Grimm, J.H.-McCoy, L.H."

She called up the information, and stared at the image that loaded first. It was herself, in some sort of a blue uniform with the Starfleet icon stitched onto the right breast, standing on the bridge of some starship next to a blue-clad Vulcan and a blond man in gold who looked so much like Sam, it took her breath away.

_Spock, Commander. Lenore Honoria McCoy, MD, Commander. James Tiberius Kirk, Captain. USS _ Enterprise_._

"What the _fuck_?"

She stared a moment longer, turning it left and right in her hand, trying to figure out when she had ever been on board a starship. When she had met these people. When she would ever stare at a Vulcan with mere exasperated bemusement, when the three she'd met had aroused nothing less than murderous sentiments.

Never, that's when.

She tossed the padd onto her desk and went back to Sanchez, still unconscious on the floor. The handprint around his throat was dark, livid purple. She crouched to check his pulse – fast, but fine – and thumb up his eyelids to see if he really was out cold or just faking it really well. When the answer came back in favor of "really was out cold", she fished her hypo kit from the desk drawer and jabbed him in the neck with a shot of Masiform D.

She counted off the seconds in her head. _Five, four, three... _When she reached one, Sanchez snapped awake, bolted upright and started coughing. "What..." he said, in a voice that sounded like steel being filed by a rusty tool.

Johnna popped the cartridge in the hypospray, inserted another, dialled the compression up and jabbed him again. Sanchez yelped, which set off another coughing fit. "You've had 10ccs of Masiform D," she said coolly, packing the hypospray and empty cartridges back into her med kit. "And a shot of terakine for the pain. You may feel somewhat nauseated. It's a common side effect of the Masi-D."

Sanchez peered up at her. "What happened?" he rasped, and swallowed. It looked painful.

Johnna smiled, and she knew it wasn't a friendly smile. "I strangled you," she said. "If you don't want it to happen again, you're going to tell me what the fuck a picture of me with people I've never met on a ship I've never boarded is doing in your fucking possession."

**oOoOoOo**

If she arched her eyebrow any higher, it would become part of her hairline. "You're bullshittin' me" she said. She didn't know if she wanted to laugh, or have the man committed for an involuntary 72-hour psychiatric hold. "Time travel."

Sanchez nodded. He winced, and put a hand to his bruised throat. "Yes, Major. My answer is time travel." He tapped the padd, with its damnedable snap of her and a Vulcan – Vulcan, of all goddamn species! - and a human on the bridge of a ship he'd assured her wouldn't be built for a hundred years. "How else do you explain it?"

Johnna pushed a hand in her hair and dragged it through. "Oh, I don't know," she said. "Body doubles, a really good plastic surgeon. That holo-technology I hear some asshole in Silicon Valley is working on. Drugs. Computer-generated images. Photoshop. There are a couple hundred ways to fake evidence, Captain. That's how the fuck else you explain it."

"I know it sounds ridiculous..."

She let out a short bark of laughter. "Sounds? Time travel is science fiction, captain."

Sanchez arched an eyebrow. "And a secret super-soldier with an extra chromosome derived from Martian genetic research isn't?"

Johnna snapped her mouth shut and glared. "Fuck you."

"The point is, Major, sometime in the 26th century, the United Federation of Planets – what this little alliance we have with the Vulcans and a few other species will evolve into – and a race called the Sphere Builders will be at war."

"Good for them," she said, leaning back in her chair and lacing her fingers together. "I'll see it when I get there."

"There are other factions involved," Sanchez said, ignoring her in favor of moving the information on the data padd past the initial image, "all of whom have access to time travel technology as well. And they all want to interfere with history, trying to gain dominance in their cold war. Temporal agents, including our counterparts in 31st century Section 31, endeavour to stop them."

He spun the padd around to face her, and nudged it forward. She leaned in to skim a service record. Her own service record. That she hadn't served yet.

Bullshit.

She pushed the padd away with an irritated grunt. "Let's say I humor you. Why should I give a shit about some war that hasn't happened yet that they're probably going to rope me into anyway in four hundred years? I thought you were here about the Xindi, not this bullshit."

Sanchez shrugged. "Because you did, so you will. Major, you're one of the very few persons Starfleet has identified as a locus. You weave in and out of their history, and you show up somewhere in all events of historical importance."

"Tell it to someone who gives a shit." Johnna picked up the padd, glanced at it again, then tossed it across the desk. Sanchez lunged for it, and caught it a moment before it fell off the desk and onto the floor. "Why the fuck would I want to go back to active service? Got a smart answer for that?"

Sanchez laid the padd back on the desk, and Johnna got the impression he was avoiding her eyes. "The _Enterprise _is being recalled in the wake of the Xindi attack," he said, and Johnna wondered what the fuck this had to do with anything. "It will be refitted, refuelled, upgraded, armed to the teeth, and loaded down with MACO soldiers. Then, it will be sent back out to search for the Xindi superweapon."

Johnna arched an eyebrow. "It blew up," she said. "They might want to try searching at the bottom of the ocean."

Sanchez winced, then slowly shook his head. "We have reason to believe that was a prototype, and that the Xindi are working on a planetbuster somewhere out in that Expanse of theirs."

Not many things made Johnna's blood run cold these days. When nothing injured you for more than a few minutes, fear kind of fell by the wayside. But the thought of a weapon capable of destroying the entire planet was definitely enough to send the chill of death racing down her spine.

She didn't know if she could survive the destruction of a planet – she didn't know, and she didn't plan on finding out. "I hope you're not going to feed me the line about serving my country. Because I paid that debt way back when your father was still a tickle in your granddaddy's left ball."

She nearly laughed at the disgusted expression that twisted Sanchez' face. Half the problem with this century was everyone was mortally afraid of vulgarity. She'd noticed it with Penny, and Penny was Grimm by blood. Had to be the Vulcan influence over humanity. Green-blooded fucking hobgoblins.

"Wouldn't dream of it, Major," the captain said smoothly, and Johnna knew that whatever he had to say next would fuck her. Spies and operatives never got that smug and smarmy unless they knew beyond the shadow of a doubt they had something to use on you. "But I know that the Xindi just killed the last of your family."

She flexed her fingers, and didn't miss how Sanchez's eyes automatically went to them, one hand flying to his throat. Some of the smugness disappeared from his eyes. "History says the MACO contingent was commanded by Major Joshua Hayes. But history can be changed. If you want to command the MACO group and hunt down the terrorists that murdered your family, we can set that up for you."

Yep. He fucking had her now. "And all I'd have to do is..?" She trailed off, arching an eyebrow significantly at him. When he didn't answer right away, she twirled her hand to indicate he should hurry the fuck up.

"All you'd have to do, Major, is become an operative for Section 31."

**oOoOoOo**

_April 7, 2153_

_Shuttle to _Enterprise NX-01

Tactical equipment had changed since the last time Johnna had suited up. Kevlar had been replaced with flexweaves and nanosteel fibers, providing optimal mobility without sacrificing optimal protection. Earpieces had gone the way of the dinosaur; a sub-dermal transceiver was tucked beside her ear, smaller and more powerful than the tech she was used to.

There weren't enough pockets, though. That drove Johnna nuts.

It wasn't an RRTS helicopter, but the shuttle felt like coming home. There was an aching familiarity in riding with a squad of highly trained soldiers, one she hadn't realized she'd been missing. She glanced around the group, feeling oddly nostalgic for the easy camaraderie of her RRTS unit. This group had been hand-picked for this mission, plucked like ripe cherries from a dozen different platoons and assignments. Snipers, commandos, highly trained Spec Ops assets. Johnna half-expected to hear Portman crack a foul-mouthed comment that would leave them all disgusted and appalled.

Johnna looked across the shuttle to the C.O., a no-nonsense military man with the sense of humor of a rock. Despite what he'd said, Sanchez couldn't actually offer her command of the MACO group.; they weren't a part of Starfleet, so Starfleet had no authority to shuffle officers. Which was fine by her; she worked better if she didn't have to worry about getting her men home safely. The C24 had made her the ultimate predator: fast, strong, hard to kill, hyperalert. Just like most predators, she hunted far better alone than with a partner.

Of course, Hayes didn't see it that way. He saw a loose cannon rattling around his command. He saw a maverick who would get his men killed. It had taken all of Johnna's not-insubstantial self-control not to reach out and slap the taste out of his mouth, as Sarge liked to say. The end result was that she was nominally attached to his unit as a field medic and XO – which rang way too many bells to feel comfortable to her – but the reality was she was as independent as they came, and got to do whatever the fuck she wanted.

She even outranked the captain of the goddamn ship, and that tickled her pink.

She leaned against the side of the shuttle and closed her eyes, letting her head rock with the motions of the vehicle through the upper atmosphere. She could still feel Major Hayes boring holes into her forehead from across the shuttle, and she let her lips curve into a smile. Hayes could wonder about her all he liked; he needed level 10 clearance to even know about the clearance level needed to access her files.

She moved her foot back, and the heel of her boot nudged her weapons locker, sealed up tight as a drum until she needed what was inside. As a "new recruit", she had been brought up to speed on the latest technology and, in the case of MACO's access, technology that wasn't even available to Starfleet yet. Not for the first time, she had to wonder if the three-year tech edge MACO held had anything to do with the time-travelling agents Sanchez had told her about.

Not that it mattered. She wouldn't be using MACO's gear anyway. It was all lasers and pulse beams and other sorts of happy hippy horseshit. As far as she was concerned now, they were at war with the Xindi, and she wasn't looking to preserve the life of anything that came looking for blood.

Nothing put monsters down like a solid-projectile rifle. She could almost hear the pleasant feminine voice authorizing the lock release on her weapon, feel the faint sting of slapping a new magazine into place, hear the authoratative rapid-fire bark of bullets. Smell the cordite.

She opened her eyes again and found Hayes still watching her. She stared back, arching an eyebrow. In an instant, she knew that he, a dedicated military man with rigid discipline and a rock-solid belief in the chain of command, was uneasy with her presence because her files were all sealed up with clearance even God would have trouble getting, and an unknown element to a man like him was a threat to his unit cohesion.

She knew, because she would have felt the same way, _had _felt the same way with The Kid when Sarge brought him into the squad. Suddenly, she wasn't so irritated with him anymore. He had all the hallmarks of a good commander, and she'd do her best not to fuck with that. She smiled at him and after a moment, some of the tension in his shoulders drained away. He nodded at her, and turned to the private asking him a question she couldn't hear.

Another private made a joke, and his seatmate chuckled. As if that had been a cue, conversations started up all around her, soldiers getting to know one another, comparing battle scars, commiserating over shared instructors and former C.O.s. The sheer _rightness _of it washed over her and Johnna leaned her head back against the shuttle's hull, closed her eyes, and basked in it.

She had spent some time looking through a microscope, and had done some good work. But now, now it was time to return to the sniper scope, at least for a little while. _Sorry, Sam. I'll get back to the microscope some day._

Reaper was home.

**oOoOoOo**

**Next time**: A time-crunch of a hundred years, because this is a Star Trek 2009 crossover, not an Enterprise crossover, after all. Johnna Grimm, now Lenore McCoy, meets Jim Kirk and things get underway.


	3. Part III: Timeskipping

**Title**: Ghosts of Mars

**Word Count**: 3783

**Overall Summary: **Two hundred years of Spec Ops wasn't long enough to prepare her for the Enterprise crew.

**Pairing**: McCoy/Kirk

**Warnings**: Language, mature themes and situations. Fem!Bones, Reaper!Bones. Hint of twincest if you squint right. 

**Part 3**: History is made, but the future is not always set in stone. The destruction of the USS _Kelvin_ proved that.

**Author's Notes**: Originally, this chapter was to cover the ratification of the UFP, the beginning of Starfleet Academy, Jonathan Archer being elected Federation president, the "birth" of Lenore McCoy, and then the Kelvin incident, but the very first part just got away from me. Suffice to say, the Kelvin disaster will appear next chapter, which is already half-written.

Onward.

_San Francisco, 2161_

When they wanted her to wear the high-collared, overstarched, scratchy wool dress uniform, Johnna put her foot down. They wanted her at the ratification ceremony, fine. But she would not look like an overstuffed blueberry doing it, so she got to haul out her slinkiest black dress to wear for the occasion.

How else was she supposed to keep in practice hiding her personal armory in interesting places unless she got opportunities to put her experience to use?

Sanchez, now a Major, met her limousine at the curb. He looked dashing in his dress blues, gold piping up his sleeves and brand new rank bars gleaming on his collar. She still didn't like him very much, but despite getting off on the wrong foot, she'd come to have a healthy respect for him. No matter how shady his business, he had Earth's – soon to be the Federation's – best interests at heart.

Johnna accepted his hand and stepped out of the limo. With a quick, practiced motion, she tugged the material of her dress straight. No sense having the lines ruined by pesky things like underwear and obvious weapons.

"Colonel Grimm," Sanchez said with a charming smile. "It's a pleasure to see you again."

She smiled back and squeezed his hand, looking for all the world like someone who'd just found an old friend after a few years' separation. She kept the smile, but dropped the volume of her voice to a low murmur. "Are we expecting trouble tonight?"

"I always expect trouble, Johnna." His tone was likewise quiet, his expression likewise blandly pleasant. But his eyes were hard and his shoulders radiated tension to her trained eye. She arched an eyebrow; must be something in those future mission reports 31st-century Intelligence kept sending him.

"Don't bullshit a bullshitter, Major. What's on the radar?"

"Assassination attempt." Still smiling, he turned, tucked her arm through his and led her down the ramp towards the main doors. "Are you armed?"

She snorted. "Like you have to ask."

"Phaser or projectile?"

"I don't trust anything I can't load into my weapon myself, Carlos. You know that." She restrained the twitch towards the weapon at her back: modelled off the Colt Peacemaker, forged in the latest plasteel technology and painstakingly tucked away so it didn't spoil the lines of her gown.

He nodded and waved to someone in the crowd lining the velvet rope. "We have reason to believe a Romulan agent will attempt to assassinate the Vulcan scholar Skon," he said.

Her eyebrow ratcheted up a notch. "Skon, the son of Ambassador Solkar?"

He flashed her a quick grin. "I see you've read my briefings."

"The limo was late. I had five minutes to spare."

"Skon is more important than a mere ambassador's son," Sanchez said, as they joined the line for the security scanners. "Make no mistake, his death will no doubt touch off an intergalactic incident that may crush the nascent Federation before it's properly born. However, his true importance to history lies in his descendants."

Johnna frowned. "If I remember the briefing correctly-" and since the C24 gifted her with an eidetic memory and perfect recall, she did, "-Skon has yet to take a mate, or undergo this _pon farr_ thing of theirs."

Sanchez nodded, waving his Starfleet security badge at the officer manning the scanners. Johnna did the same. The officer scanned the barcodes at the bottom, examined the information on his padd for a moment, then waved them through. When they were safely clear of the small crowd waiting for friends and family to pass security, he continued. "His first son is due to be born in the next four years. And while Sarek will be an important influence in politics for the next century to come, the true target is Skon's grandson." Sanchez shot her a look.

Johnna ground her teeth, recognizing Sarek's name. More of that future history they kept telling her she'd take part in. Like she'd ever become close friends with a Vulcan. "They're after Spock."

Sanchez gave her a smug smile and patted her arm condescendingly. "And they say Marines are all dumb jarheads."

She squeezed his wrist in warning, never losing the warm smile still plastered across her face. Bones ground together, and Sanchez winced. "Be nice, Carlos," she murmured. Then she sighed. "Alright. _Christ_. Tell me, how the fuck do I tell one green-blooded hobgoblin from another?"

**oOoOoOo**

Rakara swallowed the distaste as the Andorian ambassador turned away to mingle with some of the other dignitaries. Interacting with these lesser forms of life was a necessary evil, one which left her feeling soiled at the end of the day, but ultimately necessary for the glory of the Empire. She schooled her face into absolute apathy, tucked her hands behind her back and resumed the sedate pace the Andorian had interrupted with his pointless prattle.

She kept watch on her target out of the corner of her eye. The Vulcan hadn't moved in the last fifteen minutes, engrossed as he was in a discussion with a Tellarite and two humans. She drifted close enough to eavesdrop on the conversation, and couldn't completely stop a lip-curl of disgust. _Surak_. As if that fool had anything of value to learn. Really, she'd be doing Earth a service in ending this Vulcan child before he could inflict the dangerous ramblings of a madman on them.

The Tellarite excused himself from the group, and then there were three. Rakara circled again, never drawing close enough to be noticed. She felt deliciously like a ... What was that delightful animal in Earth's oceans? Ah yes, the shark. She felt deliciously like a shark, ever hungry, ever moving.

Until she was rudely interrupted by a collision with a drunken human female with dark hair and a black dress. The human's wineglass flew out of her hand and, as if a laser-guided torpedo, impacted on Rakara's chest. A dark purple began to spread, and Rakara couldn't keep the irritation off her face.

" Oh jeez," the human said, eyes comically wide. Her hands were practically stuffed down her throat in horror. "I am _so _sorry."

Rakara brushed ineffectually at the stain, succeeding in only spreading it further down her front. "It is of no matter," she said.

" No!" The female shifted from foot to foot, looking fretfully around. "No, the last thing I want to do is cause an interplantet..." She cleared her throat and looked as if she were concentrating. "_Interplanetary _incident_." _

Rakara's eyelid twitched, but she maintained an impassive expression. "It will not. The garment can be cleaned. It would be illogical to raise issue over an incident that was obviously unintentional." Of course, if such a thing had happened in the Romulan Empire, Rakara would have the offender's head on a pike before the day was out.

"Oh, please, I'd feel so much better if I could just make it up to you." Rakara choked back She pointed over Rakara's shoulder. "There's an antechamber over there. Please, let me just see if some soda water will take it out."

Rakara opened her mouth to reject yet again the female's persistence when the human grabbed her by the arm and started dragging her towards the aforementioned antechamber. She was so startled, they were halfway there before her senses reasserted themselves.

" I assure you," she said, trying to pull her arm from the human's grip and feeling the first stirrings of alarm when she realized she couldn't, "I am not offended by the accident. There is no need for this course of action." _Since when were humans stronger than Romulans?_

"And _I _assure _you_," the human said, all traces of drunkenness vanished from her gestures and voice, "it is." The human's grip was steel on her arm, and there was a distinctly Romulan gleam in her eyes. "Don't worry, Sub-commander Rakara of the Romulan Tal Shiar. This will be over in a minute."

Rakara didn't even have time to raise another protest before she was unceremoniously tossed into the antechamber and the tingle of transporter technology raced over her body.

**OooOoOo**

Johnna leaned against the side of the building a short distance from the smokers and waited for Sanchez to find her. She hadn't smoked in years, not since before Olduvai, but the drifting scent of burning tobacco brought the cravings back as if her last cigarette had been last week.

Sanchez strolled around the corner of the building, rolling an unlit cigar between the thumb and first two fingers of his left hand. As he joined her, he popped it between his teeth. "A successful evening, Colonel," he said. "The assassin is in Starfleet Intelligence's custody, the ambassador's son will father Sarek in a few years, and no one in there," he jerked a thumb at the embassy, "had any idea anything was amiss. I couldn't have done it better myself."

It was high praise indeed coming from him. "I should have just killed her," Johnna grumbled. "Now she has all sorts of opportunity to escape."

Sanchez laughed. "Pessimism springs eternal, eh Colonel?" He shook his head. "I would have thought you'd go for the direct approach. Why play the drunk?"

Johnna shrugged. "You wanted it done quicklly and quietly. I've attended a few formal functions in my time. There's always one intoxicated idiot wandering around with a full wine glass just aching to be thrown down the dress of some high-up muckety-muck. Hardly anyone pays attention to them."

"Regardless," Sanchez said. "Well done. The Sub-commander is quite a feather in my cap. We only formally met the Romulans this year, and we still don't know anything about them. This is a golden opportunity to learn about their methods."

Another nicotine craving twitched down Johnna's nerve endings as the wind shifted again and brought a whiff of smoke to her nostrils. "What's the matter? Can't rely on your information from the future?"

"In my line of work, I've learned that it's better to rely on information you've obtained yourself."

"Need to see the man behind the curtain, huh?" Johnna nodded. She could respect that. "Well, my part in tonight's little melodrama is done. What's next?"

"Next?" Sanchez smiled. "Next, you go home and discover a crate of fine, aged Romulan ale sitting on your kitchen counter." Johnna quirked an eyebrow, and Sanchez's smile deepened. "I'm told it has five times the kick of that Cardassian piss water you like so much."

A smile spread across Johnna's lips. "Major," she said with the first unfeigned warmth of the night, "if I didn't dislike you so much, I'd kiss you right now."

Sanchez waved her off. "Just don't get too drunk," he cautioned. "You have a meeting at oh-eight hundred tomorrow morning with Rear Admiral Cole. She's been tapped to be the first Director of Curriculum at Starfleet Academy."

Johnna's smile slipped a little. "Fuck me. What now?"

"They want you to become an instructor there when the doors officially open next month."

If it was a joke, it was a bad one. Johnna said as much.

Sanchez shook his head. "No joke, Colonel," he said. "Your service to Earth and Starfleet thus far make you an excellent candidate to help teach the next generation of Starfleet officers. The days of Vulcan patrimony are over. Earth has come through fire and blood, and needs to assume its rightful place as the dominant power in the quadrant. You, Johnna Grimm, are uniquely suited to such a role."

She squeezed the bridge of her nose, eyes clenched shut. She felt a migraine coming on. "Plus that goddamned fucking record shows I've already taught at the Academy."

"Plus records show you've taught at the Academy."

She closed her eyes and sighed. "The things I do for Earth," she muttered. "What do they want me to teach? History? Combat tactics? Interrogation? Fifteen ways to kill a Vulcan with your toes?"

Sanchez smile widened into the most shit-eatingest grin Johnna had ever seen. "Xenobiology."

She blinked. "Excuse me?"

"You've kept up on your alien physiology, I assume."

"You assume too much."

"I know you've boned up on all the latest medical advances, even updated your training from time to time. Think of all those fresh, young minds you get to mold in the finest tradition of Starfleet Medical." A growl escaped her lips. Sanchez just grinned, savoring the moment before he hit her with his final salvo. "I believe you might even get to write the textbook on Vulcan biochemistry."

She stared at him for a moment, debating if she wanted to slap the satisfaction off his face, or just go get drunk. "Joy," she said, and if her voice came out slightly strangled, she'd never admit it. "Fine. _Fine_. I'll teach at your damned Academy. But I won't do it as Johnna Grimm. I've been using the name too long as it is."

Sanchez smiled, like he knew something she didn't. "Of course, doctor," was all he said.

**oOoOoOo**

_Paris, France_

_2184_

Joann Samuels, called that name long enough to feel like it was finally hers, stepped off the transport pad and into the security checkpoint's scanner. The lieutenant in security reds took his time checking her out with his equipment, and Joann rolled her eyes. Every time, with the anal retentive personnel checks. Every time, she was tempted to tell them that Joann Samuels didn't exist, and watch them take a collective shit of fear before their security check cleared her.

The scanner finally turned blue and beeped, and the security officer handed her back her tricorder and hypo kit. "Apologies, Admiral," he said, and actually looked sorry, which was more than she could say for the other fuckwit who usually staffed this position. "It's S.O.P."

"Mhm." Since he was being so nice, she spared him the Grimm glare of death and instead nodded. "As you were, lieutenant." She collected her items and with a twitch to straighten her medical blue unishirt, proceeded down the lavishly appointed hallway leading to the office of the President of the United Federation of Planets.

She dispensed with the knocking and stepped through the plasteel double doors, closing them quietly behind her. To her credit, the President's secretary had a phaser pointed at her when she turned back around. Joann could dodge even a phaser beam – she'd done it on several occasions – but the other woman's speed impressed her nonetheless. She merely arched an eyebrow.

"I'm expected," she said, and lifted the medical tricorder. "The President's physical."

The secretary didn't blush, and Joann suspected Spec Ops training somewhere in her background. It might have been the professional way she made the phaser disappear, or the set of her shoulders when she turned back to her typing.

"The President is in a meeting at the moment. I've messaged his personal comm; he'll see you when he's finished."

"That's fine." Joann wasn't there to give a physical anyway, though the President was overdue for one. She made a mental note to see if Doctor Phlox would attend it before his guest lecturer tenure at Starfleet Medical was finished; after several years aboard the _Enterprise_, Archer trusted the Denobulan more than he trusted most other doctors.

She smiled wryly. _If only Sam could see me now... Running Starfleet Medical. Scheduling physical exams for the President of the galaxy. He'd think I'd been possessed. _

She didn't miss it when the doors leading to the President's inner office opened less than five minutes after her ass found a chair. She scowled when she saw who opened it: Feingold. An oily little man who had replaced Sanchez some five years back. One day Sanchez wasn't there, and Feingold was. She never got an explanation for the change in her handlers. She doubted she ever would. Goddamned spies.

"Oh," she said, and didn't bother trying to keep the distaste from her voice. "It's you."

"Good morning, Admiral," he said, and his smile reminded her of a used car salesman's, right before he sold the biggest lemon on the lot. "The President will see you now."

**oOoOoOo**

It had been six months since she'd seen Archer, and even then, it had been at his swearing-in ceremony. She'd had five seconds as an attending dignitary – head of Starfleet Medical being somewhat of an important figure, after all – but he hadn't recognized her in that short time frame.

Now, though, he had every opportunity to study her face and make the connection. "Major Grimm," he said, surprise etched in his features. "You're a long way from MACO."

"We're all a long way from where we were, Mr. President," she said lightly, squeezing his hand. "I was very sorry to hear about Commander Tucker. I wanted to attend the funeral, but I'd been assigned to another mission by then, and I couldn't make it."

Before the President could reply, Feingold butted in. "As fascinating as watching two people reminisce is," he said, "we're here for a reason, Admiral." Ignoring the glare both Archer and Joann sent him, he laid the padd he carried on the desk. "Mr. President, if you will..?"

Archer glanced at Joann with a questioning eyebrow, and she shrugged in response. Slowly, Archer took his seat, then lifted the padd to read the information on it. Joann stayed quiet, watching closely as his expression shifted from curious to surprised to shocked to outright disbelief. He glanced up at her again, and she shrugged again.

"I don't just age well, Mr. President."

His gaze shifted to Feingold, the sort of look in his eyes that had withered lesser men, that had convinced wavering allies to stick with humanity. Feingold was seemingly immune. "How is this even possible?" he demanded.

Feingold cleared his throat. "In 2020, scientists discovered a facility in New Mexico-"

"For fuck's sake, Feingold, can't you remember your own briefings? It was 2026, archaeologists, and _Nevada_, you mouth-breathing fuckwit." She turned to the bemused Archer, once again ignoring the seething Feingold. "We're here to brief you on a project that was buried in the depths of bureaucratic hell, Mr. President, and for good reason. In 2026, a portal to an ancient city on Mars was discovered. We called it the Ark. The city, we called Olduvai, and men playing God unleashed hell on earth there..."

**oOoOoOo**

_Atlanta, Georgia_

_2227_

They always thought they could sneak up on her.

Penny McCoy, once Joann Samuels, always Johnna Grimm, heard the whine of the transporter, supposedly inaudible to human ears, but since when had the C24 ever given a shit about human limits? She finished the paragraph of her memo and saved the text. A quick sniff of the air brought a faintly floral scent to her nose. "Evening, Erib. How's the weather on Andoria?"

Her blue-skinned handler slid out of the shadows, antennae twitching in embarrassment. "You always know I'm there," she said with a wry smile. Erib th'Zarath was her fifth handler in the last fifty years, and she liked this one best so far. The girl was quick, had a sense of humor, and clandestine affairs hadn't completely ruined her morals. Yet.

"That's because I'm awesome," Penny said, spinning her chair to face Erib and folding her hands over her stomach. "What can I do for you?"

Erib tipped a padd at her; Penny took it. The document showing was a birth announcement. One Lenore Honoria McCoy had been born to David and Penelope McCoy three hours ago. "I thought congratulations were in order," she said with a very human grin. "It's not every day one gives birth to themselves."

Penny's hands stilled on the sides of the padd. "Getting to be time then, huh?" It was too bad; she liked this life of hers. It reminded her of the work she'd done at this very hospital eighty years ago, before the Xindi. Before the _Enterprise _NX-01_. _

Erib nodded. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry."

"Eh, no matter." She placed the padd on her desk and rubbed her eyes. "I've known this was coming for longer than you've been alive, Erib. I'm ready." The things she wanted to keep, she always had in a go-bag. The rest was replaceable, especially in this increasingly currencyless economy.

"We have transport scheduled for oh-six hundred tomorrow morning," Erib said, gently reaching over her for the padd. She brought up the pertinent information and showed it to Penny. "David will have an unfortunate accident aboard the USS _Archer_, so it's probably a good thing he's fictional. The ranch is secluded, no one will bother you."

"And if I want to bother them?"

Erib laughed. "We won't just abandon you to the wilds of Georgia, Admiral. There are other tasks we'll be tapping you for in the coming years."

"Goodie," Penny said. "I'm just a shiny toy to you people, aren't I?"

Erib smiled. "The shiniest." Her smile faded away. "You're not happy with this. This is important, Penny."

Penny sighed. "It always is, Erib. It always is"

**oOoOoOo**

**Endnote: **I promised Kirk this chapter, but honestly, this section's a beast as it is. Rest assured, next chapter brings us up to the events of the Star Trek reboot.


	4. Part IV: 2233 to 2255

**Title**: Ghosts of Mars

**Word Count**: 2814

**Overall Summary**: Two hundred years of Spec Ops wasn't long enough to prepare her for the Enterprise crew.

**Pairing**: McCoy/Kirk

**Warnings**: Language, mature themes and situations. Fem!Bones, Reaper!Bones. Hint of twincest if you squint right.

**Part 3**: History is made, but the future is not always set in stone. The destruction of the USS Kelvin proved that.

**Author's Notes**: At long last, the promised Kirk/McCoy meeting. It took a bit, but between kids and birthdays and generally busy weeks of appointments and meetings and such, it's finally done! Huzzah. Some may recognize lines in the bar and shuttle scene: these are not mine, and I lay no claim to them. They were taken directly from the movie itself, and are credited to the screenwriters of the film.

The notion that Bones might be able to smell someone who could safely take the C24 I first discovered in a fic archived on this site. (I cannot recall who it was right now; if you read this fic and you know, please tell me, and I will properly edit it in this A/N.) It's an expansion of the Doom monsters being able to sense who was violent, and who wasn't, so not entirely original, but I'd still like to credit it.

**oOoOoOo**

_McCoy Ranch_

_Undisclosed location, Kentucky_

_March 22, 2233_

Penny McCoy unlocked her door, stepped inside, let her go-bag thunk onto the floor, and threw herself face-down on the couch. She hadn't been home in more than a month, and it had been a busy month at that. More species coming out of the woodwork, more save-the-galaxy bullshit from her handlers at Section 31. Warp drive improving, more galaxy to defend.

One of these days, she'd like to get her hands on those mysterious packages from the future that dictated the course of events Section 31 chose to take. All she'd ever seen had been the tantalizing glimpses rationed out in her mission briefings.

With a sigh, she flipped over to stare at the ceiling. Truth be told, she had been glad to get the action this last month. It had been over two years since Erib had shown up to call her to active duty, and Penny missed it. She knew why she'd been relegated to the wilds of Kentucky – ostensibly, to raise her four-year-old self, fucking timeline mechanical bullshit – but sitting on her ass never did anything but drive her crazy.

She was tired. Not physically – the C24 annihilated pretty much anything it came into contact with, including exhaustion – but mentally tired. Every thirty or so years, ennui set in, leaving her restless, bored and with the odd niggling thought of _will airlocking myself kill me? _She didn't _want _to die, per se, but sometimes she just couldn't get the scrolling list of the dead out of her head.

She forced herself to her feet, shaking the bleak thoughts out, and went into the kitchen. She eyed the replicator warily, then said, "Sweet tea, cold. Three ice cubes. One lemon wedge." There was a sparkle on the small pad, and a glass of lemonade beaded with moisture appeared. Penny sighed. Fucking things never worked right. No frigging mystery why starships didn't even have this technology yet, though she'd been told that someday it would be perfected.

She took the lemonade anyway and gulped down a couple of mouthfuls. It was far too lemony with not enough sugar. Penny drank it anyway.

She tossed the glass into the disposal, hearing the crashing tinkle as it broke. Didn't matter; the matter recompiler, or whatever that little doohickey inside was called, would reconstitute it the next time she asked for something and didn't get it. The shattering glass almost, but not quite, covered the telltale tingling whine of a transporter being activated.

Her nose twitched. Sandalwood soap over sweat and smoke. Her brow furrowed. Not Erib. She spun as her hyperalert hearing registered a sound behind her, her old-fashioned pistol appearing like magic in her hand from where she had lodged it against the small of her back. "You got three seconds," she said evenly. "Start talking."

The man, a paunchy non-descript type with mousy hair and a plain, thin face, slowly raised his hands. "Major Grimm," he said, and her hackles rose at the long, long disused name. "I'm supposed to tell you _experimental weapons and humidity never mix._"

Penny hesitated a minute, then lowered her weapon. She didn't relax; no one would come to her using that code unless things had gotten seriously fucked up. She stared the stranger down and though he flinched, he didn't break eye contact. "Where's Commander Erib?"

The man swallowed. "Dead."

She snarled silently. She had liked Erib, goddammit. "How?"

"There's been an... incident." The man made a careful motion towards his hip, where his phaser hung beside a pouch. She eyed him, then nodded her permission. He had come knowing a name a hundred years dead, with a code she herself had given Section 31 to use. Unless he pulled and started firing his cute little laser pistol, she'd let him do what he came to do.

"Define 'incident'."

When she didn't stop him, he pulled a personal padd from the belt at his hip. "At 0845 hours yesterday morning, an unknown vessel attacked and destroyed the USS Kelvin. Commander Erib was aboard."

Penny took the device – damn things were getting smaller and sleeker all the time – and scanned through the information. Advanced weaponry, Romulan similarities, blah blah blah. She looked up at the man, an eyebrow arched. "This isn't in the timeline."

"No," the man said. "Most of the crew and passengers made it off the _Kelvin _before the Romulan ship destroyed it, but there were a lot of casualties." He hesitated, a hand twitching across his nose. "Commander Erib was on the bridge. She didn't make it off."

Penny sighed and closed her eyes, mentally updating her list of the dead to include Erib. She had _liked _the Andorian, goddammit. "The Kirks?"

The man shook his head. "George Kirk was killed in action; he took command of the _Kelvin_, and lasted twelve minutes. Winona Kirk escaped the destruction in a medical shuttle, went into labour, and gave birth to a healthy baby boy. She and her son are currently en route to Earth, with the other survivors, for debriefing."

Penny glanced down at the appalling list of names on the padd in her hand. "None of this was supposed to happen."

"No, ma'am," the man agreed. "It wasn't. The Romulans don't have anything near that level of technology as yet; it looks like the ship that destroyed the _Kelvin _came from an unknown stretch of time in the future. Possibly a hundred years or more. It-"

She slammed the padd down onto the coffee table, hard enough that a crack spiderwebbed across the durable screen. The man jumped. "I've been Section 31's dancing monkey for over a hundred years, all on the premise that they had all this knowledge of the future. Now you're telling me, the future can change? That they suddenly don't know what the fuck is going to happen?"

The man's eyes skittered back and forth, between the hard-to-break padd she'd just damaged, to the leashed fury on her face. "I-I..."

"For a bunch of anal-retentive paranoid fucks, it didn't occur to any of you to make contingency plans? Just in case someone else decided to abuse time travel technology? Did you all assume, in your lofty ivory tower, that the future was all sewn up in a pretty bow, and all you had to do was sit back and reap the benefits?"

"I d-don't... That's above my paygrade."

She shook her head. Never in a million years would she ever have thought she'd miss Sanchez so much. That slippery little motherfucker would have been all over contingency plans. They'd have to invent new letters, he'd have so many in place. "Obviously standards at the Academy have gone down since I last taught there. Aren't they still teaching _the plan rarely survives first contact with the enemy_? What the hell did you think was going to happen?" She sighed, plunged both hands into her hair. "Jim Kirk is still alive?"

"Yes. Definitely."

"Any other mishaps I should know about? Assassins get loose on Vulcan and kill Spock? Did Sulu's parents not get married because of some last minute interference? Will Scotty not become a starship engineer because an uncle encouraged him to build moonshine stills in Aberdeen instead?"

"I don't... I don't know."

"Find out. Get back to me. And then get lost."

The man's eyes widened. "I'm assigned to be your handler," he protested and Penny sighed. It figured his backbone would emerge when his prestige was directly threatened.

"Let me lay it out for you, whoever you are. No, don't tell me. I don't give a flying fuck about your name, your rank, and your assignment. Fuck all that. I've been a good little soldier, doing my bit for this overglorified Federation. I held up my end of the deal. Now, I find out that your people haven't been doing theirs. They half-assed it. And as far as I'm concerned, half-assing something like this is a deal-breaker."

The man sputtered. "You can't just-"

Penny snorted. "Watch me," she said. She gestured pointedly at the open door. "Show yourself out. I've got work to do."

**oOoOoOo**

_Shipyard Bar_

_Riverside, Iowa_

_2255_

Jim Kirk, at first glance, was nothing special. He had the unconscious swagger of the terminally cocky, his nose had obviously been broke once or twice, and his grin was equally mocking and self-deprecating. He reminded her a lot of herself, before the RRTS, before the C24. Brash and ballsy, with no fear for consequence.

He was also the spitting image of Sam, something the snaps and stills she'd seen in the Future Files over the years hadn't quite gotten across. Her pulse fluttered every time she thought too hard about it.

She sat in the corner, nursing a drink (though it wouldn't have mattered if she pounded them back by the dozen), and watching the drunk-off-his-ass Kirk try unsuccessfully to hit on a pretty, black Starfleet cadet. His pickup lines were so bad, she didn't know why this Uhura girl didn't turn around and deck him. Then again, this was supposedly the new age of peace and tolerance. Happy, hippy horseshit, she liked to call it.

She found it hard to believe that this self-destructive kid was supposed to be the man who would pioneer a new era in space exploration. On the other hand, she thought maybe that's what the Romulans had intended when their future ship tried to kill him in the first place.

She rattled the ice cubes in her glass idly, chin propped on her hand, as she watched Kirk make a complete ass of himself. He didn't even blink twice as the beefy cadet he flippantly called Cupcake laid hands on him. Cupcake and his cronies were really working Kirk over by the time Lenore finished her drink. She debated an intervention of her own, but the point was made moot by the arrival of Captain Pike. He took charge, kicked everyone out, and settled down for a nice long chat with Kirk. She was unobtrusive in the corner, half-hidden in shadows. She doubted Pike even knew she was there.

"...You like being the only genius-level repeat offender in the midwest?"

"Maybe I love it."

Lenore smirked and signalled the waitress for another drink. Yup. Kid had balls, alright. Maybe there was hope for this century after all. Still, Pike wasn't going to get him back on track that way. No. Johnna Grimm had needed something more to sting that pride, make it a challenge. So would James Kirk.

"...your father was Captain of a starship for twelve minutes. He saved eight hundred lives, including your mother's. And yours. I dare you to do better."

"That will do it," she murmured. She tossed down the drink the girl had just brought and slipped out the door behind Pike, leaving Kirk alone in the bar, staring at a salt shaker shaped like his father's ship.

**oOoOoOo**

_Starfleet Shipyard_

_Riverside, Iowa_

_The Next Day_

Lenore had a window seat in the shuttle, where she was sat waiting for Jim Kirk to make his appearance. It was almost time for the shuttle to depart; most everyone was already in their seats. The pretty cadet, the group of thugs, a bored-looking gentleman. No Kirk.

She glanced out the porthole in time to see him sliding off his bike, all long legs and sun-bleached hair. He tossed the keys to another cadet and strode towards the shuttle. Lenore's pulse skipped a couple of beats and her stomach did a few more barrel rolls. If she didn't know any better...

"You've gotta be fuckin' kidding me," she muttered, ignoring the scandalized look her seatmate gave her at the vulgarity. She was over two hundred years old, for chrissake! She was way too old for teenage crushes.

"Four years?" she heard Kirk say at the front of the shuttle. "I'll do it in three."

The next thing she knew, she was in the bathroom with her head in her hands, trying to get control of her breathing again. She blinked, trying to figure out what the fuck had just happened. She pondered it for a moment, but all she could come up with was that, just like the C24 jacked up her fight response, it also jacked her flight response.

She growled. Johnna Grimm, Joann Samuels, Lenore McCoy, whoever the fuck she was supposed to be this decade... None of them ran away from anything. She was not going to start now.

Still, it might not be a bad idea to sit in here for a bit and compose herself. If she tricked herself into thinking it was a tactical retreat, she could live with it.

She got five minutes before the officer in charge of making sure seat belts were fastened and tray tables locked in their upright positions started banging on the door, asking her if she needed a doctor.

"I don't need a doctor," she snarled. "I_ am _a doctor!"

There was a brief scuffle as the door was jimmied open, and the officer came in with that no-nonsense look on her face Lenore always associated with security. She laid an authoritative hand on Lenore's shoulder. Lenore let her. "You need to get back to your seat, now."

"I suffer from aviophobia. It means fear of dying in something that flies." She hadn't been afraid of dying in a plane or chopper since long before the doomed trip to Olduvai, but she needed an excuse to have locked herself in the bathroom. _Rabbited away from a kid a fraction of my age because he reminds me of my dead brother _wasn't good enough.

"Ma'am, for your own safety, sit down, or else I'll make you sit down."

It took everything Lenore had not to laugh in the woman's face. She looked like she could handle herself in a fight, but if Lenore didn't want to let her force her back into the seat, the woman wouldn't have a prayer of following through on her threat. She let the woman shove her back down, next to a busted-up Jim Kirk, who was watching with bemusement. "Fine."

The woman smiled brightly. Lenore's hackles rose, but she forced herself to stay in her seat. "Thank you."

Pike's voice floated from the direction of the comm unit, informing the passengers that they'd been cleared for takeoff. Lenore closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then immediately wished she hadn't. Jim Kirk, however showered he looked, still stank of bar smoke and spilled booze, sweat and blood and pain. She could smell each thing as strongly as if it had just happened.

And carried under all of that was a hint of something Lenore had not smelled in well over a hundred and fifty years. It was clean and sweet and seductive and _familiar_. It took her a moment, but finally it dawned on her. Oh Christ on a stick, it wasn't enough he had a strong physical resemblance to Sam. He had to fucking smell like him too.

It took her another minute to remember _why_ Sam had smelled so attractive. Her stomach stopped doing flips and started roiling, sending queasy pulses up through her throat. It was the C24, recognizing compatibility, and her brain's interpretation of the impulse. She swallowed a couple of times, hard. Kirk looked at her with both eyebrows raised.

She hauled out her hip flask, took a long swig of Romulan ale to wash the taste of bile away. Her stomach continued twisting. "I may throw up on you," she told him, and offered him the flask.

**oOoOoOo**

**Endnote: **The next chapter crunches the three Starfleet Academy years, and will see the return of Reaper as Jim's sometime guardian angel. It's not like Johnna/Lenore really needs to study, after all.

Thank you to everyone who's put this on story alert, or favorited it. It really makes my day when I see another notification for favoriting or story reviews in my email inbox.

The next update will not take as long as the last one has, I promise.


	5. Part V: 2255

**Title**: Ghosts of Mars

**Word Count**:

**Overall Summary**: Two hundred years of Spec Ops wasn't long enough to prepare her for the Enterprise crew.

**Pairing**: McCoy/Kirk

**Warnings**: Language, mature themes and situations. Fem!Bones, Reaper!Bones. Hint of twincest if you squint right.

**Part 4**: The Academy Years I.

**Author's Notes**: Academy life. Onward, ho!

**oOoOoOo**

_Starfleet Academy  
>San Francisco, Earth<br>2255_

Jim Kirk was going to drive her to drink.

No. Scratch that. She already liked to drink. Jim Kirk was going to drive her abso-fucking-lutely round-the-bend beyond-the-pale batshit fucking insane. Despite her role as protector and guardian, Lenore did her damnedest to avoid the kid every chance she got. But Kirk was worse than shit on Velcro. He clung stubbornly to her, refusing to be shaken off.

He was _everywhere._ When Lenore went to class, he was there. When Lenore escaped to the mess hall, he was there. When Lenore found the dimmest, darkest, furthest corner of the most unvisited research lab to hide and catch her breath, to get away from the too-delicious-smelling blond doppelganger of her brother, Kirk somehow managed to find her.

And she couldn't even stay mad at him, dammit. She glared, and grumbled, and made general death threats towards him, but he just smiled that cocky, love-me grin, and she would trot along with whatever harebrained plan he'd concocted in his apparently copious free time.

To make matters even better, the standards at the Academy had either risen sharply, or just as sharply declined, depending on her mood and class schedule on any given day. Her science and medical classes were top-notch, even if she wasn't really learning anything new, but basic combat had dropped so far into "basic", she felt like a fumbling, wet-behind-the-ears new recruit all over again.

Phasers were too light to properly balance. Bladed weapons were too replicated, and her overclocked reaction time was just as likely to make her drop the knife as it was to wield it properly. And forget about good old toe-to-toe, fist-to-mouth, knee-to-groin brawling. The Academy had so many rules and regulations and oversight and safety equipment put into place, she might as well be beating her opponents with pillows.

When the hell had Starfleet become so wussified?

Everything taken together (but especially that damned _smell_) left her off-kilter and wobbly, snarling and spitting enough that, if anyone had wanted to befriend her to start, they sure as fuck didn't now.

Except Kirk. The thing she could not shake. He'd imprinted on her on the shuttle, like a baby duck, and there was no getting rid of him.

Something had to break soon. Or she'd break _him_. Into itty bitty pieces. Which they'd never find.

Humpty Dumpty had nothing on her.

**oOoOoOo**

_San Francisco, Earth  
>October, 2255<em>

Lenore stared across the doorjamb at Kirk, mentally rehearsing the various parts of the Denobulan skeletal structure to keep from lunging across the threshold and either killing him or kissing him. "What do you want now?" she said instead.

Kirk's face lit up with unholy glee as he took in her appearance. She had just gotten out of the shower – an actual, honest-to-god water shower that she had to beg, bribe and threaten some poor ensign in Requisitions to have installed. "You're looking good, Bones," he drawled. "Very drowned cat."

"Shut up, infant," she muttered, and went back to toweling her hair dry. Technically, she was supposed to be in a uniform, being a "cadet", but she hated the damned things and took any excuse to avoid putting the unishirt on. She much preferred the undershirt, which left her arms free to move wherever she needed them to. "It's called bathing. You might want to try it once in a while. I can smell the cologne from here. Going out trolling for loose women and free booze again?"

"You know me so well."

Lenore pinched the bridge of her nose with her free hand, tossing the damp towel into the refresher for recycling. She felt a migraine coming on. Just like all the others, she was going to name this one _Jim _too. "You're going to get tossed out on your ass."

"Live a little, Bones." Lenore didn't have to look at him to know the stance he'd adopted. Loose, confident. Arms crossed, leaning a little against the door. One booted foot slung over the other. Casual rebel badass. Portman had had that one down to a tee. "What's life without a bit of danger?"

"Safer," she shot back, and finger combed her wet hair into some semblance of order. "Let's cut to the chase, kid. I have a recertification exam tomorrow, and I have to study, so I'm not going anywhere but over to that couch, where I have a very exciting night planned with a bottle of Cardassian firewhiskey and my padd."

"Whoa, slow down, Bones. You don't want to injure yourself." Not content to hang around in her doorway, Kirk sauntered on in to her quarters. She was hyperaware of his movements, from the thunder peals of his footsteps to the almost inaudible scratch of the padd as he picked it off the table. "Come on, darlin'. All study and no fun makes Lenore a dull girl."

She whirled to snatch the padd from his hands and set it back down on the counter. "All fun and no study expels Kirk from school."

"Pssh." He waved a hand dismissively. "It's all refresher and basic. Who needs to study for that?"

"I do!" She was lying through her teeth, but he didn't need to know that. "Not all of us have genius-level intellects. Or," she added waspishly, "the loose morals of a repeat hooligan."

Kirk stared at her for a moment, then let out a guffaw. "Hooligan? Bones, c'mon. What century did you grow up in?"

_Don't ask, kid. You don't wanna know._ She sighed. "Look, Jim. I have the medicine down, but I'm not exactly current on Starfleet S.O.P., and my basic combat is laughable at best." If she hadn't practiced that one in the mirror, it would have come out through gritted teeth. "So while you're out gallivantin' around the city, I need to bone up or you'll have company on the sidewalk when Starfleet finally wises up and chucks you through the door."

Kirk just grinned and shook his head. "They'd have to catch me first. So I really can't convince you to come with me?"

_Stop smiling like Sam. _"You really can't."

"Too bad. I had an awesome night out planned. Might even have gotten you laid, too. Would work wonders for that stick up your ass."

She snorted, successfully ignoring the mental images those words, spoken in _that _tone of voice, brought up. There was no one who could tell her she wasn't successful at that. "Don't flatter yourself, kid. Even you don't have the charm to make me likeable."

"You underestimate the power of alcohol, Bones." He tipped two fingers at her, still with that shit-eating grin. "Don't wait up, Cinderella."

"I'm a doctor, Jim, not a pumpkin."

She waited until she couldn't hear his footsteps anymore, until his heartbeat had faded from her ears, until the heady scent of him that stubbornly lingered in the air even after he'd gone had almost vanished into the air cyclers. Only when she was absolutely sure he was gone and wasn't going to come back in the hopes of actually talking her into going out did she move.

**oOoOoOo**

_McMillan's Pub  
>San Francisco, Earth<br>April 20, 2254_

He was in the bar again. The bar Lenore had warned him time and time again to steer clear from. San Francisco wasn't exactly a major hub of crime, but as one of the major ports for interstellar travelers on Earth, it saw its share of rough and shady types.

It was a good thing Lenore didn't need to sleep, because neither did Kirk, apparently. If she hadn't known for sure, she would have sworn that Kirk was just as hopped up on C24 just like she was, because his energy was endless. If he wasn't running rings around his physical training class, soaring his way through more academically-oriented programs or logging countless hours on the sim decks, he was carousing, gambling and drinking. Lenore, ever vigilant, couldn't remember off the top of her head the last time Kirk had gotten more than a couple hours sleep at a time.

With an eidetic memory, that was quite a feat.

When she'd been normal, when she'd been carrying a lot fewer decades than she currently was, she hadn't been the stealthiest Marine in the squad. Two hundred years had improved her skills until Batman himself couldn't have done better. Not that anyone these days knew who Batman was; like most things from her childhood, comics had gone the way of the dodo.

She lurked in the back of the bar, a shadow in the shadows, nursing a drink so she didn't look too out of place and keeping her eyes resolutely fastened on the blond-headed idiot gambling with some of the shadiest, roughest aliens she'd ever seen. They had brought out some kind of card deck, with thick circular cards, explaining the rules in broken Standard to her charge. Her eyes narrowed at the toothy grin on one, seeing less the smile of a card shark and more the smile of an actual shark about to take a bite.

But she let the game play out. Let Kirk, damn him to eternity, pick up the game with the ease with which he did everything else. Let him clean them out slowly over the course of the night. Let their smiles dim. Let their expressions turn hostile. Let Kirk get drunker and drunker. Let him stand up, wobble a bit, and take his leave.

She even let the aliens follow him out the door before she got out of her chair, leaving her mostly-intact drink where it sat.

She wished she could say she didn't sign on to be a babysitter, but that's exactly what she had done.

Kirk was neither stupid nor blind, but he had a staggering overestimation of his own ability to hold his liquor. Granted, he could drink most people under the table, grab three hours of sleep and bounce out of bed bright-eyed and bushy-tailed with nary a hint he'd been shitfaced the night before, but while drunk, all of his worst qualities were magnified. The brashness. The cockiness. The self-assurance. The invincibility complex.

The surety that no one could ever be mad at him. The conviction that he could talk his way out of any trouble that came his way and, failing that, punch his way out.

This wasn't the first time Lenore had to clean up after him. It sure as hell wouldn't be the last.

She slid into the shadows of the rooftops as Kirk cut through an alleyway, for all the world appearing as though he didn't see the pair of angry aliens following him. She snorted softly. He probably didn't. She moved forward, easily keeping her balance on the narrow ledge, keeping pace with the group below her. No one ever looked up, and they were no exception.

They cornered Kirk at the end of the alley, hedging him against a chain-link fence with a semi-circle that effectively cut off escape. Kirk smiled affably, raised his hands to show he was unarmed. Lenore could hear his words as clearly as if she were standing next to him. "Gentlemen, to what do I owe the pleasure?"

"You cheat at _baccarat, _heu-mon," said the goblin, the heavily accented Standard snapping between his fangs. "Nifvur doesn't like cheaters."

"Not like cheats either," grumbled the grey hulking mass, cracking knuckles that looked like they were coated in stone.

On anyone else, the smile that spread over Kirk's face would have been considered the wide-eyed smile of drunks and children. But Lenore knew better. That smile was the one he hid indignant rage behind. No one called Kirk a cheat, and walked away without being hit.

"C'mon, kid," she muttered, hand white-knuckling on the edge of the roof. "Let it go. Just let it fucking go this once."

He didn't. Of course he didn't. He never did. Why would he start now?

He spat something in a language harsh and guttural, one Lenore didn't recognize. The goblin reeled back like he'd been dealt mortal insult, and the dim light from the streetlamp at the mouth of the alley glittered silver across the knife suddenly in his hand. Rockbeast growled, responding in the same tongue like stones grinding in an engine, and his fist came up.

"Fuck my life," Lenore muttered, and dropped from the roof like a stone.

**oOoOoOo**

Jim knew he was screwed up. Knew it in the pit of his gut. He'd picked one too many fights with questionable aliens, trotted down one too many dead-end alleyways with angry, drunk strangers on his trail. He didn't even know why he did it. The adrenaline, maybe? The uncertainty of it all? The ultimate gamble: life or death?

Most of the time, Jim knew how the fights would play out. He'd swing, they'd swing, fists and flesh and bruises and blood, but no one would pull a weapon. Maybe it was luck, or maybe it was idiocy, but he'd thought it would continue that way. Predictable, with just enough uncertainty to make it spicy.

Nifvur and his scaly giant were almost pure uncertainty. They were stronger, he didn't recognize their species and so saw no discernible vulnerabilities to give him an edge, and they were armed.

For the first time ever in his life, Kirk saw the very real possibility of his death in the eyes of another being. He didn't know if he wanted to welcome it, or fight it tooth and nail.

But he was James Tiberius Kirk, and he did not go quietly into that gentle night. Wouldn't know how to even try. So he balled up a fist, spat something very nasty in Klingon about Nifvur's patriarchal line, and reveled in the rush of adrenaline as his body prepared to fight. Life flooding his veins, tweaking his reflexes. It was the sweetest rush. Better than sex, better than drugs.

He was _so_ screwed up.

Nifvur snarled back, a dire imprecation about his direct parentage, and that's when the knife came out. The unnamed rock giant cracked his knuckles, and Jim braced himself for a rib-crushing blow. Those fists didn't look like they could deliver anything less.

He ducked instinctively, shying away from the silver flash. Oops. Can't forget about the knife. Bones was going to kill him if she had to stitch him up on top of treating his bruises. He hollowed his stomach as the blade hissed past, catching in the fabric of his shirt, and ducked under the return backhand swipe, barely making it under the edge. Holy _shit_, NIfvur was fast. Way faster than Jim gave him credit for.

He might just be in trouble here.

**oOoOoOo**

Holy _shit, _the goblin was fast. Wicked accurate with the blade too; only Kirk's instincts had kept him from already getting sliced in half. But as fast as the little goblin was, Lenore was faster.

The alien had managed two swings of the blade by the time Lenore dropped from the roof to the alley, and was on a third that just looked like it might hit something vital. Kirk wasn't going to dodge fast enough; she was going to have to push it to get there in time. If she delayed just a moment, Kirk was going to die.

Maybe if he had the C24… No, that was a dangerous line of thinking. Because if she started thinking about if he could have the C24, she'd start thinking that he _should _have the C24. And that was not a path she was ever going to walk.

It was too late to play the _whoops-guess-I'm-in-the-wrong-place-hey-can-you-gu ys-give-me-directions _card, which had worked splendidly the last time she'd had to save Kirk's ass from angry aliens. She didn't think it would work on these two anyway; they had the look of hardened killers. Lenore knew what that looked like; she saw it every time she looked in the mirror and saw Johnna Grimm.

She was just going to have to pray that Kirk wasn't looking too hard at who saved him.

It was a logical chain of events in her mind. A slow, methodically executed series of moves. Grab the knife hand, yank and spin. Knife skitters off into the dark. Goblin's mouth opening in an O of shock. Rockbeast starting to react, slow as molasses in January. Pivot. Spin-kick into Rockbeast, hard enough to topple an elephant. Sickening crack of some internal support, a bone or bone-analogue, as it breaks under the blow. Rockbeast concaving as he begins his flight to the wall. Goblin spinning helplessly as she moves, hand scrabbling at her wrist. Grab with the free hand, spin again and fling him into the other wall.

Vanish into the shadows of the Dumpster behind Kirk, where he'd never think to look.

She didn't have to check her watch. Four seconds. A personal best. Both assailants were down for the count, one unconscious and the other immobile and in pain. Threat neutralized.

She stayed one more moment, watching Kirk blink furiously, his face an open succession of expressions as he tried to come to grips with what had just happened, and she grinned to herself. "Good luck, kid," she murmured, and slipped away.

**oOoOoOo**

For the second time that night, Lenore stared across the doorjamb at Kirk, who was staring at her with an unsettling intensity and an uncommonly serious expression. She had a bad feeling that this conversation wasn't going to at all sit well with her, and she wanted to slam the door in his face to avoid having it. "What do you want now?" she said instead.

In response, Kirk held up an old-fashioned wristwatch with a broken clasp, and that bad feeling suddenly opened into a yawning pit in the bottom of her stomach. Reflexively, she felt her left wrist with her right hand, and found it bare. The goblin must've grabbed it off right before she sent him flying face-first into a brick wall.

"Something you wanna tell me, Bones?" Kirk's face was mild, his tone light. But Lenore heard the steel core threading through his voice. She knew without asking that she could either tell him the truth, or lose him forever. She knew it would eventually come down to a choice like this. She knew which choice was the officially correct one. She also knew which choice she could live with.

She closed her eyes with a sigh. "No, and you're not gonna believe me, but I'll tell you anyway." She pushed the door open and turned to move back into her quarters. "Come in, Jim, and sit down."

She was getting tired of her cover anyway.


End file.
